That’s it. Enough, already. It doesn’t matter that this college basketball season is still in its infancy, and that this particular brand of torture has been personally endured only once. That was more than enough because it provided a desultory climax to what had been an entertaining basketball game between DePaul and Florida.
Anyone who watches the college game with even half an eye knows what that means. The final two minutes of a close game arrive and suddenly there are any number of timeouts so the coaches can show off their crisply laundered shirts, their tightly tied Windsor knots, their genius.
Accompanying those timeouts are any number of unintentional-intentional fouls that result in any number of referees’ whistles that cause countless disruptions in play for trips to the free-throw line, turning a back-and-forth game into a foul-shooting contest.
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Some years ago an esteemed colleague from Kentucky named Billy Reed suggested that coaches sit in the stands as their players took those exams called games. Nothing came of that fine idea, and no wonder. Television, after all, needs shots of squirming coaches to fill time, and coaches need air time to model their thousand-dollar suits.
Those coaches also claim they are no less teachers than the professors who unravel the mysteries of the universe or the meaning of a Shakespearean sonnet. And those profs aren’t there exhorting their students and diagramming plays as they take tests, which are the classroom equivalent of games. So let us tweak the esteemed Reed’s idea just a bit, and have this:
During the last two minutes of a game, no timeouts are permitted except for serious injury. Then the injured player’s coaches must stay on the bench and his teammates must retreat to a neutral corner.
During those two minutes, neither the head coach nor his assistants are permitted to shout out instructions. If they do, they get hit with a two-shot technical and the opposing team retains possession of the ball.
And, finally, the team that is fouled retains possession after taking its shots.
Think of the revolution these simple changes would inspire. No longer would the final two minutes take 20, as they often do now. No longer would those two minutes be glutted with free throws, as they often are now. And most important, those two minutes would be turned over to the players on the floor, who too often are little more than puppets whose strings are being pulled from afar.
These changes surely would have provided a more fitting end to last Saturday’s DePaul-Florida game, which was filled with uncertainties, with twists and turns and droughts and runs that promised–no, demanded–some kind of dramatic conclusion.
Consider. Florida runs out to an early 10-point lead and looks as if it might be headed for a runaway. DePaul roars back and goes up five with 2:31 left in the first half. Then the Blue Demons go cold, lose guard Imari Sawyer to injury and limp into the locker room dispirited and down six. Three minutes into the second half they are down 11 and reeling, but they won’t quit and back they come one more time. With 7:50 remaining, they are up one, and now the game begins to teeter with each possession. Florida up four at 4:31. DePaul up one at 2:52. Florida up one at 1:32. And then the long, slow, laborious march to the finish.
A DePaul foul, followed by a 20-second timeout. Two Florida free throws, both good. A DePaul miss, a 20-second Florida timeout. Another foul by DePaul, a make and a miss by Florida. A stupid Florida foul, a missed front end by DePaul. Another DePaul foul, two more Florida free throws. One more 20-second Florida timeout. A DePaul miss, followed by another foul, followed by two more Florida free throws.
With Florida up eight, there are 24.5 seconds on the clock, and still to come are two more Florida trips to the foul line and two more DePaul timeouts.
That was no way to end any game. It would have been much more dramatic to see if Florida could make one of those outside shots it had been missing. It would have been much more exciting to see if DePaul could rally from one more deficit and pull off the upset. It simply would have been much more fitting to see the game settled by the students of DePaul’s Pat Kennedy and Florida’s Billy Donovan, who, after all, had already taught them to be tested in moments like these.
So that’s it. Enough, already. Give the game–or at least its last two minutes–back to the players.